Citation
Andrew, A.M. (2000), "Search facilities", Kybernetes, Vol. 29 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2000.06729iag.008
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited
Search facilities
Search facilities
In a recent Commentary, two sites offering search facilities were introduced, both of them brought to attention by enthusiastic comments from Bob Rankin in issues of the Internet Tourbus. It is easy to feel that there should be a way of ranking such sites, by submitting some "benchmark" set of questions, but these sites differ from standard search engines in allowing greater user participation. The Metor site, at: http://www.metor.com, allows searches to be initiated in any of 24 different ways, and the Big Eye, reached at: http://www.bigeye.com, offers much more than a search engine and is intended to be a gateway to the whole of the Internet.
A feature of the Big Eye site is its enormous number of links to other Internet sites, with an invitation to Webmasters elsewhere to form new reciprocal links. Some sites are connected functionally besides having the usual Internet link, and it is, for example, possible to browse book lists and to order books without leaving the Big Eye, with the guarantee that the order will be handled and charged exactly as though placed with the online booksellers Amazon.com. (Customers in the UK, however, will presumably be better advised to deal with the UK branch of Amazon, at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/ so as to have the items despatched in the UK and charged in sterling.)